1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of semiconductor, and more specifically, to semiconductor packaging.
2. Description of Related Art
The demand for small footprint devices for use in applications such as smart cards, cellular devices, mobile communication, and mobile computing has led to many challenges in fabrication technologies. One such challenge is the development of ultra-thin packages.
Ultra-thin packages require reduced die thickness. The reduction of the die thickness becomes even more difficult as the diameter of the wafer is increased. There are currently four primary methods for wafer thinning: mechanical grinding, chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), wet etching, and atmospheric downstream plasma (ADP) dry chemical etching (DCE). During the fabrication phase, handling ultra-thin devices is difficult. Existing techniques to facilitate handling of ultra-thin dice or wafers have a number of disadvantages. For example, use of adhesive tapes is limited by the non-uniformity of the tape. Most of the available glues are thermally stable up to about 120° C., which may be too low for additional thermal processing. Other techniques such as dicing before grinding (DBG) or dicing by thinning (DbyT) may cause additional damage to the dice or wafers.